I'm pretty sure that the refresh rate of the TV itself is always at its highest, what you can switch off is the technology of the TV making up frames that aren't there by combining successive frames - and that is what makes it look like video. If you have a 200hz TV, it will always refresh 200 times per second, the difference is whether the same frame is repeated several times or the TV makes up the frames between those that are actually present in the source - it's an awful thing for movies - when my dad bought an HDTV at my recommendation, he kept complaining to me that films look wrong. I could see it too but at the time I didn't know what it was but in the end I figured out it was the 120hz function and when I switched it off, it looked great.

Having only just started seeing HD images on my television screen (not via broadcasts or blu-ray), there is a general shock of the new.

The theatrical cinema experience is very different from watching a television.

There is the ritual of entering into a theatre which totally different from sitting on a sofa and turning on a screen.

If it is a film being projected it's very rare that a perfect print is used and there is the interaction between the the projected light and slight imperfections in the screen, atmospheric conditions between the point of projection and the screen etc (not so much an issue in these post smoking ban times but there is still falling dust and that sort of thing).

Watching a show like Game Of Thrones in HD (were every grape is a jewel and every crack in the ice is as sharp as a razor) at home without those rituals and distractions is undeniably a different experience of television than what I've been used to for most of my life, in the same way that the move to widescreen television was.

In my early life our family alternated between colour and B/W television until colour became the standard so I had to get used to that and the introduction of stereo sound too.

The various tricks used in disc authoring and grain control aside that alone will make HD at home seem unusual for a while.

Davnes007 said:

This was a Star Wars thread?

The OP has a brief reference.  Still seems like an off-topic thread, but for some reason people seem to be afraid of the lunatics in off-topic...

I mentioned it to The Moth3rator and I hope I'm not braking any confidences but the reason why this thread is being allowed to stay here is because of the derailment of threads like this one.

As someone who participated in the general mayhem there I have to admit I can see his point.

It might make his job a bit less of a toothache if perfectly innocent threads like this one are kept reasonably on track.

Just a gentle paddle to safer shores guys and gals.

Bingowings said:

I mentioned it to The Moth3rator and I hope I'm not braking any confidences but the reason why this thread is being allowed to stay here is because of the derailment of threads like this one.

Well, not EVERY off-topic thread goes that way...but I can see his point.

Maybe if the off-topic threads had single word titles like the Politics thread they'd stay on topic...

What hang on... That don't make no sense

A compromise - I'll move the thread into the technical discussion forum, where it is problealy most appropriate.

Moth3r said:

A compromise - I'll move the thread into the technical discussion forum, where it is problealy most appropriate.

:(

But no one will post in this now!

oh and spelling mistake

theprequelsrule said:

How does the Alien series quad look

I've only seen Aliens but the transfer was amazing IMO. There was some scare prior to its release when Cameron spoke about personally overseeing the transfer and grain removal but the transfer it really nice and there is a lot of grain. If any grain was removed, it was probably just excessive dupe grain.

I'm not sure what source was used for mastering the Aliens Blu-Ray but it is quite common to use an interpositive (a 2nd generation copy of the original negative) for home video masters. Dupe grain is the grain added by making a copy of a film strip by combining the grain already present in the source with the grain in the film strip onto which it is being copied.

Read my first post on this very page ;-)

canofhumdingers said:

If you're watching this on a 32 inch Vizio LCD, then of course it looks "wrong"!  You get what you pay for...

Not even joking, I have a 32 inch Vizio TV.

:-(